Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Nick Pivetta got the strikeout he was looking for against Pittsburgh Pirates lefty Canaan Smith-Njigba with two outs in the top of the second inning Tuesday night.
But the punch out from the veteran right-hander didn’t come with a stroll back to the dugout. Reese McGuire’s inability to squeeze the curveball from Pivetta allowed Smith-Njigba to reach first base on a dropped third strike — McGuire was charged with a passed ball.
It gave an extra life to the Pirates and allowed the next batter in Ji Hwan Bae to then hit a two-run home run, which gave Pittsburgh the lead for good and only magnified the miscue by McGuire.
“Worked to a good curveball count there, 3-2, being aggressive down in the zone,” McGuire told reporters following the 4-1 loss at Fenway Park, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “He made a really good pitch, it was just nasty enough to get right underneath my glove. I felt like I was in a good position to get ready to lift it up into the zone, and for whatever reason it just clipped off the end of my glove and I didn’t quite get down to it. Complete ownership of that.”
The passed ball from McGuire and the subsequent homer could have made Pivetta unravel, but he hunkered down to throw five innings in which he allowed just one earned run on three hits while striking out six and walking three. McGuire was appreciative of the way Pivetta handled the situation.
“Credit to him for not showing me up and coming back right in there and giving us some solid innings to get through five,” McGuire said.
Pivetta said he tried to have short-term memory in that moment, looking to move forward instead of being hung up on what happened.
“It’s just part of baseball,” Pivetta told reporters, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “You never know what’s going to happen. You still have to go out and compete and make pitches. I think it was a 1-1 count I believe and it was a fastball away (on the home run). Good swing on a good pitch. You can’t allow those things to kind of fold. You kind of clear it and move on.”
